Casual Conversation
by aces
Summary: Just some observations about a certain ascended archaeologist...


The vague idea for this story has been rattling around in my head for a while now, but I didn't actually start writing it until after seeing both "Meridian" and "Abyss" for the first time (and on the same night in the wrong order, which was a bit of a heady combination, let me tell you). It's a crossover...but I won't say with what, because you probably wouldn't know the show in the first place, and somehow I think it would ruin the atmosphere if I did say (or maybe I'm just being bloody-minded). Anyway, the crossover's just there so I can write the story (if that makes any sense). You'll see. ;-)  
  
Standard disclaimers: The characters do not belong to me; I intend no copyright infringements; I make no profit off the story; I write only for entertainment purposes. Spoilers only for the two episodes mentioned above (unless I've missed something). Feedback is always appreciated.  
  
CASUAL CONVERSATION  
  
"You know," he said, "we're a lot alike."  
  
Daniel didn't answer right away. Instead he stared down at the little round table sitting between them, or perhaps he stared through the table would be a more accurate assessment. They were on the terrace outside Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo in the year 1888. They were at an outdoor café in Paris in the year 1900, and if Daniel turned around he could see Oscar Wilde seated behind him. They were at a picnic table in a Colorado forest in the spring of 2000. They were outside a restaurant in the twenty-fourth century in San Francisco, Starfleet Headquarters rising up behind them. It didn't matter. The setting wasn't real. Or maybe they were the ones who weren't real.  
  
"Would you like some more tea?"  
  
Daniel looked up at the politely-voiced query, switching his thoughtful frown to his companion on the other side of the table. "I'm more of a coffee man myself," he murmured absently, his gaze drifting into the middle distance as he spoke.  
  
"Ah." The other man looked abashed. The look suited his youthful face but not his old blue eyes. "Sorry. Well, I'll just have some more if you don't mind..."  
  
"Of course not," Daniel said with a slight smile, watching the other man pour the liquid into his cup from the teapot. The frown came back to Daniel's face, crinkling at the corners of his eyes and creasing his forehead. "Not that I actually need liquid refreshment anymore..." He shook his head at the thought. The first cup of tea the man had poured for him remained untouched and cooling in front of him on the table.  
  
"Right," the other man said. "About that. Does your lot always have to go around in white and those pale colours? When you're not just beings of energy and light of course..." It was his turn to frown in mild puzzlement before shrugging it off and taking a sip of his tea, smiling beatifically.  
  
"My lot?" Daniel muttered. "I didn't realize I had a particular lot..." He shook the thought away and glanced down at the white sweater and tan trousers he currently appeared to be wearing. "And what's wrong with white?" he added in defensive confusion, looking up at his more darkly- attired companion once again.  
  
The other man smiled slightly. "Nothing, Daniel," he said. "Simply an observation. And of course you have your lot. We all do, even if we try to run away from them."  
  
"But I'm not the one running from 'my lot.' You are. Or has that changed again?"  
  
His companion shrugged. "I always appear to be running from something or other," he said lightly. "At least it's good exercise."  
  
"What are you...what are you doing here?" Daniel said, the words seeming to burst out of him. He gestured around him wildly at the changing landscape. And then he subsided, falling back in his seat. "What'm *I* doing here?" he added as the thought occurred to him.  
  
His companion shrugged again. "I thought you were a human who had ascended to a higher plane of being on a path to enlightenment. Isn't that what you're doing here?" The tone was innocent, deliberately misunderstanding Daniel's second question and thereby evading the first.  
  
"And what about you?" Daniel decided on a whim to play at his game because he could never pin his companion down anyway.  
  
"Me? I'm just a traveller."  
  
A wry smile crossed Daniel's face. "I've noticed that. This is--what, the fourth or fifth time?--I've run across you on my own journeys. You might look different each time, but it's always you." He was almost willing to believe the other man was a delusion, a phantom. But...somehow it really wasn't likely. Why would he need hallucinations anymore? And why would he conjure this person up?  
  
The other man was grinning. "I get around a lot."  
  
"Yes, you do." Daniel sat forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the little round table. Or so it seemed he did. Nothing here was quite what it appeared. Especially not either of the men. "You know, when I travelled through the Stargate with my friends, we never came across you, or any of 'your lot' for that matter. But since I ascended, you keep popping up in the oddest places."  
  
"Isn't that interesting? As I said, I travel a lot. I probably did visit many of the same planets you did, just not at the same time as you and your old friends. And now, as to our running into each other...coincidence. Serendipity. Luck. Chance." He waved an extravagant hand around as he sipped his tea from the cup held in his other hand, his eyes never leaving Daniel's face.  
  
Daniel's lips quirked upward incredulously. "You don't really believe that," he said.  
  
"No," was the frank reply. Blue eyes steadily regarded Daniel's face as the man set down his teacup. "You tell me, Daniel. Why do I keep running into you?"  
  
"Sure it's not the other way around?" Daniel answered dryly, sitting back. He almost lifted a hand to adjust glasses that weren't resting on his nose. It was a hard habit to break in this physical form.  
  
"Is it?" the other man raised an eyebrow. "How do I know you don't find me out deliberately? Perhaps you need a confidante, a confessor. And you know you can trust me."  
  
The frown was back. "That's crazy," Daniel said. "Why would I--why would I need that? Why would I look to *you* for that? I barely know you."  
  
The man smiled again, making even his old eyes seem younger. "As I say," he said gently, "we're a lot alike. And you miss this." He waved a hand around at the terrace, the forest, the café, whatever the scenery currently was. All that remained constant was the little round table with the tea things and the two men seated there.  
  
"This what?" Daniel imitated the other man's gesture before wrapping his hands around himself and watching his companion closely.  
  
The man nodded to Daniel, to the arms hugging the body. "This form. This type of communication, this type of interaction with other beings. You miss the life you had."  
  
"No," Daniel said softly. "I don't. It was time for me to move on. I'm glad I did."  
  
"Yes," he replied, "you are glad. But you do miss your friends. Why were you so quick to help Jack ascend otherwise?"  
  
Daniel glanced up at him sharply. "How do you know about that?"  
  
The other man shrugged again innocently. "How do I know anything?" he asked with a widening of his blue eyes. "But you were awfully quick to see no other choices for the colonel, don't you think? You're alone again, still. Yes, you've got your lot, but you're still not *entirely* comfortable around them. And you miss Jack."  
  
Daniel shook his head. "But it worked out," he pointed out insistently. "I didn't need to help him. Jack lived; he got his fighting chance, all because of his friends--our friends..." He trailed off, pinched the bridge of his nose, a sense memory from a body that no longer physically existed.  
  
"Yeees," the other man said. "Interesting, that. Despite all your protestations to the contrary, you still broke the rules."  
  
"No," Daniel's voice was suddenly hard, his hand dropping away from his face, "I didn't." He glared at his companion.  
  
The other man leant forward, holding Daniel's gaze deliberately. "You bent them," he said. "You whispered in Teal'c's ear while he was meditating; you gave him the idea for Yu to attack the fortress. You bent the rules, just a little. You knew Jack wouldn't ascend, even when you asked him to, when you told him there was no other choice; you knew he wasn't ready for that, and you couldn't bear to see him reduced to a mere shade of his former self. After all, you intimately know the effects of that sarcophagus. And you knew what would happen to him when Ba'al no longer had any use for him."  
  
Daniel sat back. "They were on the right track," he said. "They were going to get there eventually. But it would have been too late." He glared up at the other man, burning blue eyes meeting calm, ancient blue. "I didn't even bend the rules."  
  
"Be honest," the other man snapped. "Lie if you must to your lot, but be honest to yourself."  
  
"And are *you* always honest with yourself?" Daniel shot back.  
  
It made the other man pause. "You have a point," he conceded with a charming change in his mood. "Oh dear. That didn't work very well, did it? One should always practice what one preaches." He took another sip of tea. There was a pause in the conversation.  
  
Daniel stood up and restlessly prowled around the table. He paused, staring out at a desert city, a city of cobblestone, a forest, a gleaming metallic landscape, before turning back to his companion. "What do you mean we're a lot alike?" he asked slowly. He eased himself back into his chair, never taking his eyes off his companion. "Why do you keep saying that?"  
  
The other man gave him a long, considering look. He seemed to see past the illusory physical form, look right into the energy and dancing light. "You've cheated Death almost as many times as I have, despite your relative youth in comparison to my relative age," the man said, his words quiet and introspective, which only made Daniel pay that much more attention. "You have continually been isolated from your companions, your friends, for whatever reason. And you're always looking for another way."  
  
Daniel frowned. "Oh," he said. Inadequately. He blinked and again resisted the urge to fumble with no-longer-needed glasses.  
  
The other man met his eye wryly. "Don't recongize that description of yourself? Surely you do. Surely you remember how many times you died before you--regenerated into this new form of yours," he waved a hand in Daniel's direction, and Daniel glanced down again reflexively at the white sweater. "Surely you've noticed how often you are separated from your friends--whether because they were on the ground and you were in the sky, because you were the one captured and they had to rescue you, because you wandered off without them or because they were forced to leave you behind, or because you became a pure energy being and you still don't know how to interact with the others--you're alien." The words were spoken sadly, a sad smile on his deceptively young face, a deep sadness that seemed to be almost as much for himself as for Daniel. "You're different."  
  
"That's just circumstance," Daniel retorted. "None of that means anything-- "  
  
"And what of the 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality you were always fighting against?" the other man smoothly overrode Daniel's protestations. Daniel quietened, watching the other man warily. "You followed the 'speak first, try not to shoot at all' line if I'm not mistaken. With the occasional lapse, of course." Daniel winced. "Look at your last act as a human being. Using a gun, a weapon of death and destruction and killing of flesh, to break a window so you could save millions of lives." There was a touch of admiration in the man's voice. "Sounds like something I would have done."  
  
"So we're a little bit alike," Daniel said, trying to push away the uncomfortable, confused feelings he had. "What of it? What does it mean, what does it signify?"  
  
"Nothing," replied his companion, surprised. "Who said it had to mean anything? I was just making an observation."  
  
Daniel briefly closed his eyes in frustration. "And that's been the entire point of this whole conversation? Simple observation?"  
  
"You tell me, Daniel."  
  
"I don't need a confessor," Daniel replied, opening his eyes to glare warningly at the other man. "Or a confidante."  
  
"Don't you?" the other man said gently. "I bend rules too, you know. Go places I shouldn't. Whisper words to people that shouldn't be whispered. I've broken my own lot's non-interference policies too many times to count. Yes, perhaps those rules are there for a reason...but that doesn't mean they have to be followed. That they always *should* be followed. Circumstances change. You know that."  
  
Daniel looked away. "I had to make sure Jack would be alright," he said softly. "That he used that fighting chance. It was a...special occasion."  
  
"You knew he would use it." Daniel heard the soft words, tinged with that soft accent, but didn't look at the face saying them. "And you know how important it is to say good-bye. Catch up with old friends." There was a hint of a nostalgic smile in the voice.  
  
"Yes," Daniel sighed. "I just had to make sure Jack was alright. And tell him that everything would *stay* alright."  
  
"I know," the other man said, voice overflowing with compassion and sympathy and understanding. Daniel looked up and met the old blue eyes. "I know."  
  
He felt a little better.  
  
"Well," the other man said, pushing his chair back. "I really should be off now. Things to do, people to see, places to save from catastrophic destruction or meglomaniacs attempting to take over." He grinned down at Daniel delightfully. "You know how it is."  
  
Daniel looked up again. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, I do. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt." He paused. "And will I be seeing you again?" he added dryly.  
  
The other man shrugged a final time, blue eyes clear and guileless. Daniel didn't trust him for an instant. Or perhaps he'd always instinctively trusted this man. Nothing was what it seemed, especially either of them at the little round table. "Perhaps," the man said. "You never can tell."  
  
With another grin and a wave, the man walked away confidently. Daniel didn't watch to see where he went, if he turned a nonexistent corner behind a building apparently made of stone, if he disappeared behind a nonexistent tree or into a puff of unlikely smoke. Instead he frowned down at the little round table at which he still sat, watching the tea in the pot grow cold. He would have to go soon. He too had other things to do, other places to be. But for the moment he wanted to pretend he still had this body and these blue eyes, even if he didn't have to wear the glasses anymore.  
  
With a sigh, Daniel faded away from the table. And after a moment, everything else faded away too. 


End file.
